Presidio Heritage Museum

★Designer Ralph Appelbaum Associates

🔿Location San Francisco, CA

OUR CHALLENGE

The Presidio was established in 1776 and is the oldest garrisoned post in the American West. The Trust wanted to renovate the Officer’s Club into a heritage museum that honored the historical building itself as an artifact in conjunction with adding dedicated gallery space in a new additional building.

HOW WE SOLVED IT

Group Delphi worked with design firm partners Ralph Appelbaum Associates to create exhibits that were designed, built and installed without penetrating any of the original building’s surfaces – this meant no screws, nails, or bolts could be used – as well as creating casework for the 162 artifacts, plus timelines, maps, graphics and lighting elements in the new building’s Heritage Gallery.

WHAT ELSE WE DID

In the Mesa Room, we used miniature jacks to wedge the large sliding glass panels between the overhead beams and the floor. A similar wedging system was used to lock focused overhead lighting and audio sources in the window wells on the ceiling. To position and secure the flipbook pedestals in the Mesa Room, we utilized the structures’ hollow base and loaded it with steel bars to “fix” the pedestals in position while carefully respecting the historical architecture. For the large vertical graphic panels in the Anza Room, a similar pressure fit treatment was used. This was particularly tricky to do while meeting seismic codes.

To learn more about what we accomplished at the Presidio Heritage Museum, or to talk to us about your project, please contact us. We’d love to talk to you.